Can leaders be flexible in how they interact with others?
Yes, I do believe that leaders can be flexible in the way they interact with others, or change their behaviors or personalities so to suit the situation. Also, they might need to focus on followers needs/behaviors or their level of readiness by changing or shifting behavioral their leadership style. One theory might describe and support this concept is the situational leadership theory which requires leaders to center their leadership style or behaviors according to their followers level.
This theory was initially created by Hersey and Blanchard (1969) and has approaches that concern for people productions as well as shows that there is no one best style of behavior for a leader (Norris, 1992). Most importantly, the situational theory require leader to adjust his behavior and leadership style to features of followers and situation.
Therefore, it might be important to look at the four styles described by Hersey and Blanchard to identify the situations that any leader might have to change his style or behavior.
There are situations where leader might have to be flexible with his followers by giving them less responsibly and delegation of tasks due to their lack of knowledge/experience, or if they are newly hired etc. the leader in this case might need to utilize the ''telling style'' whereby there is more of directing and controlling of leader to his followers. In this behavioral style, leader's role involves telling his follower on what and how to perform their tasks step by step. In my working experience, for example, I tend to use this style when training people whom are newly hired or inexperienced and require a lot of assistance or hints when in doubt. I might sometimes need to ''spill out the responsibilities'' or duties for perform to make sure that they are still on focus.
Knowing that differences between tasks and relationships behaviors as described in Hughes et al (1996), I agree that the telling style does have high task and low relationship with
This theory was initially created by Hersey and Blanchard (1969) and has approaches that concern for people productions as well as shows that there is no one best style of behavior for a leader (Norris, 1992). Most importantly, the situational theory require leader to adjust his behavior and leadership style to features of followers and situation.
Therefore, it might be important to look at the four styles described by Hersey and Blanchard to identify the situations that any leader might have to change his style or behavior.
There are situations where leader might have to be flexible with his followers by giving them less responsibly and delegation of tasks due to their lack of knowledge/experience, or if they are newly hired etc. the leader in this case might need to utilize the ''telling style'' whereby there is more of directing and controlling of leader to his followers. In this behavioral style, leader's role involves telling his follower on what and how to perform their tasks step by step. In my working experience, for example, I tend to use this style when training people whom are newly hired or inexperienced and require a lot of assistance or hints when in doubt. I might sometimes need to ''spill out the responsibilities'' or duties for perform to make sure that they are still on focus.
Knowing that differences between tasks and relationships behaviors as described in Hughes et al (1996), I agree that the telling style does have high task and low relationship with